Sunday, April 13, 2008

Et in Nostalgia ego

Nostalgia for the thing that happened fifty-three minutes and twenty-one seconds ago

Well, now I'm nearing the end of the hour, and as the gloom draws in, I've finally got time to set my feet up, relax, and cast my thoughts back over the long, golden vista of seconds, minutes, and quarter hours. So many seconds! It hardly seems likely that I have lived through them all. My mind moves with tenderness over those delightful seconds that passed some half-an-hour ago now. There was the time when ... and then the time when we... and then the time when I... oh, MERCY!

My mind affixes upon one moment, one golden instance, those long minutes ago. I see myself, now, sitting in the work kitchen with my coffee, laughing and chatting... well, it wasn't so much golden as black - that's how I like my coffee. And it actually wasn't that pleasant: full of gossip and bitching. But still: I was so much more carefree and innocent then! Well, forty-seven minutes and thirty-three point two seconds more carefree and innocent. But!

Oh, to have the idle joy of those lost microseconds back! Life is not so simple now: I am caught, here, at work. Verily, life is a vale of tears! Never more will I experience the like of that lost coffee again. Well, not until lunch, of course, if I survive for another two hours and thirty-nine seconds. That's seven thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine long seconds, leaden seconds heavy, despair-laden seconds. What? Yes. I'm counting.

But life is filled with these precious seconds, I remind myself. Even now, I long for that time, thirty-two seconds ago now, when I shifted my posterior from a slightly less comfortable position to a slightly more comfortable position. Oh, to return to those simple, happy times of yestersecond! Even that time, some five and a bit seconds ago, when I was growing slightly less comfortable but still a bit of the old comfort remained, seems sanctified now in the roseate glow of memory. But oh, life is a passing thing! Doubtless, in another few seconds I will be longing for the longing I experience now for the seconds that passed only a few seconds ago, but will then be the seconds that passed a few seconds before the seconds that are now passing me by!

To be as young as I then was! Why are the first things so precious to us? The first time I tasted coffee (for the day); the first time I sat down in my relatively comfortable but not-too-comfortable work-chair (for the hour); the first time I logged onto Facebook (to distract myself) and threw a cow at a friend! However, soon the innocence passes to experience and memories become stained. The second coffee (for the day); the second time I sat in my relatively comfortable but growing-more-uncomfortable work-chair (for the half-hour); the second time I logged on to Facebook and threw two more cows at friends... Granted, they were still fun. But no longer - oh, never! - done with the happiness and childish glee they once had for me! Well, okay. They were still pretty good.

All in all, when I consider my life (for the day) so far, I can not help but long after things as they were some fifty-three minutes and twenty-one seconds ago. Fifty-three minutes and twenty-one seconds later, I am burdened down with woe and travails and tears. It hardly seems like that I am to live another fifty-three minutes and twenty-one seconds, does it? I am an old man now: well, a slightly older man, anyway. And I guess I will live that long. But for another day? Really? Oh, I suppose I will. But still...

I mourn for the world as it was fifty-three minutes and twenty-one seconds ago! I weep for the person I was fifty-three minutes and twenty-one seconds ago! Nevermore will they come again! It was a lost Neverland, a Utopia of dreams! Oh, mercy!